How to brew with the Speidel Braumeister

This site comes as a complement to the amazing Speidel Braumeister by providing the most complete, yet super easy to follow, instructions on How to brew with the Speidel Braumeister

This guide is the result of countless brews by a passionate owner, with many hints learnt through experience

So, let’s get started!

Ideally, place your Braumeister right next to a source of hot water, like a shower, and a drain (bathtub, sink or just a hole in the ground), which will make your entire brew day much easier

Weigh your malts and crush them if needed

A bit of DIY goes a long wayHomemade hexagonal threaded bar for electric drillThe stand is made of 38mm x 57mm wood (the feet position has been improved on this picture to balance the drill)A 12.5cm pipe (external diameter) perfectly fits the mill container with no fixing required. 1m can hold 7kg, which is perfect as the max capacity of the Braumeister’s malt pipe is about 6.8kgA piece of cardboard prevents the grain from spraying around

Note: don’t believe the hype about crushing grain on brew day; if you buy grain already crushed, it will remain fresh for at least a couple of days

Prepare 4L (1 gallon) of sanitizer in a bucket, that’s about 5ml of Star San or 15g (1/2oz) of sanitizing powder such as One Step

Doublecheck that the pump of the Braumeister is properly tightened

Clean the Braumeister like this:

Rinse the inside

Activate the pump

Drain through the spigot

Repeat if needed

Make sure the pump is powerful and free from malt from previous brews

This is a powerful and free pump
Place the malt pipe, as well as one perforated disc at the bottom and a fine mesh disc on top of it

Mash

Turn your Braumeister on and make sure the recipe is correctly programmed

Start the program making sure you are on the right recipe

If you need a good mash schedule, this one will work wonders for most beers

Fill with 23L mash water (the top mark is 25L and the one below 20L, so that’s a little higher than halfway between the two)

As you fill the Braumeister, keep an eye on the display and adjust the shower (if any) for approx. 60°C (140°F), starting at this slightly higher temperature, 60°C (140°F) instead of 38°C (100°F), prevents sugars from sticking onto the coil during dough-in and makes cleaning a bliss, without any difference on the beer taste

Pour the malt into the pipe taking great care not to drop grain outside the pipe, which could clog the pump

These flexible buckets are perfect, because you can bend them to funnel the grain

Place the top fine mesh disc and the perforated disc on top of it, and secure them with the tube and wing screw

If you want to measure the mash pH, do it 15 minutes into the first mash step
You can set an alarm on your phone for this
Let the wort cool down in a cup before measuring if you use a pH meter, those devices are easily damaged by high temperatures
Mash pH after 15 minutes should be between 5.2 and 5.4 and it’s a very important factor for optimal conversion of starch into sugar

Nice!

The Braumeister will go through both mash and mash out automatically without stopping, until it will beep to ask you to remove the pipe
That’s about 1.5 hour with the above program

Feel free to open a window from now on to let steam and smell escape

You can already prepare your hops additions during the mashYou can get these cups from the kids department at IKEA

Sparge

When the Braumeister beeps to asks you to remove the pipe, start the rest of the program immediately (= 3 clicks), as it will take a good 15 minutes to reach a boil anyway

Lift the pipe and, without removing the perforated disc, sparge about 3L of hot water (77°C/170°F) on top of it, that’s about up to its little cylinder handle
Your simplest bet for this is to use a shower at max temperature ~65°C (149°F)

Let the pipe drain for 2 minutes and then move it on top of your fermentation bucket the same way it was sitting on the Braumeister

Don’t forget to add hot water to the Braumeister up to 24.5L (right below the top mark on the central piece), that will be your pre-boil volume

Let’s talk about volumes

If you typically brew 5 Gal (19L) recipes you found online, this means 5 Gal in the bottles/keg

To reach this goal with your 20L Braumeister, start with a pre-boil vol of 6.5 Gal (24.5L), so that you will end up with about 5.4 Gal (20.5L) in the fermenter
This way, when you bottle, with the trub loss, you will end up with your 5 Gal (19L)

In case of a 90 minutes boil, start with 6.7 Gal (25.5L)
By the way, boiling for 90 minutes does not make much difference, unless a special hops schedule is required by the recipe, so, go for 60 minutes, you will save time

Starting with these pre-boil volumes is a great way to go, especially for brewers in the metric system, because you can directly recycle the many 5 Gal recipes you find online without any further conversion

If you want to speed up the temperature rise, you can use a 2000W portable water heater, which allows to reach a boil in 7-8 minutes instead of 15
Note: on a 220V 10A network, this might blow your fuse, but worry not, even if after a power cut, your Braumeister will be able to resume the program

Measure the pre-boil gravity
Your best bet for this is a refractometer

Pour the wort you collected in the bucket into the Braumeister

Boiling 25L of wort for 60 minutes creates quite some steam (not to mention 90 minutes) and you may want to extract this outside to make sure it won’t start dropping from the ceiling, which could create a risk of contaminationGhetto air extractor with hi-tech “carton fiber” hood. Make sure to slightly tilt the pipe, so that no condensation falls back into the kettleThis is a 100mm inline fan. The tape on the cable forces drops to fall outside

Boil

When the boil starts, remove the lid, so that off-flavors can be released

Add bittering hops
The first hop addition will likely end up on the sides of the kettle because of the hot break (foam), feel free to scrub and push them down with a plastic paddle

Dump the grain into the bucket and discard it
You can keep some to make dog treats as per this recipe

Spent grain dog treats

For “ruffly” 30 pieces

6 cups spent grain

385g flour (3 cups)

400g peanut butter (1.5 cup)

3 eggs

Mix everything in a large salad bowl
Make 5cm (2 in) diameter balls and then flatten them down to 1cm (1/2 in) and make the bone shapes
Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F), then bake for 30 minutes
Lower temperature down to 107°C (225°F) and let dry for 3 hours if not more
Keep in the fridge in a sealed container

Also, clean the pipe and discs before things gets sticky

Add flavoring and aromatic hops at given times according to the recipe

Cool wort down

Prepare your wort chiller and place it in the Braumeister 10 minutes before the end of the boil to sanitize it

Pitch yeast in the fermenter before transferring the wort, this way it will naturally get mixed and not remain stuck in the foam in case you use an aerator

It’s a good idea to place a strainer bag in the fermenter (after the yeast), because, even with a proper whirlpool, a lot of hops will make it to the fermenter and this can affect the bitterness of your beer

Open the spigot making sure it splashes as much as possible for better oxygenation
Towards the end, you can tilt the kettle, but stop when it’s almost only hops

If you use a wort aerator, put it in the fermenter for 10 minutes while you clean the Braumeister

Take note of your batch size (that’s the volume of wort in the fermenter)

Finally, in your favorite calendar, add the various remaining operations:

I never had problems brewing with up to 6.8kg, beyond that, you have to press the grain too much.
Most big beers require 6.8-7.0kg for 20L. That’s actually the one of the limitations of the Braumeister; you can tell it was originally designed with German beers in mind, but with big IPAs or any style that shoots for more than 7% alcohol, you reach the limits of the malt pipe.
If you want to stick to the recommended 6kg, just brew smaller batches and scale your recipes down using BeerSmith

Yes, it’s enough, because it’s just to get some more sugars that may be stuck in the mash.
The Braumeister does not require any sparging, actually, because, technically, the the sparging is already done when you lift the pipe thanks to the pump and circulation.
So, I do a quick minimal sparge, just to get some more sugars.

Hello there.
I would like to buy this one, but I cannot find any information about whirlpool process. Does the Braumeiter 50l Plus has builded in whirlpool function? Does the bottom of the device have some slope or some other solution, so that after the whirlpool, minimum bruch falls into the fermenter?
Please some info!